From Boston’s earliest days, Christmas was not celebrated. Holiday goodies like pudding and mince pies were banned- December 25th was a mandatory work day, and town criers walked through the streets reminding the populace: “No Christmas! No Christmas! No Christmas!” In fact, in 1620, the Puritans spent their first Christmas in the New World building their first structures. The next […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader To some people, the word “corporation” has negative connotations, and not without reason—names like Enron and Lehman Brothers come to mind. But it’s also one of the greatest tools for economic growth ever invented. Here’s a brief, fascinating history of the corporation. BACKGROUND Most of us have a simple understanding […]
Read more
From the beginning, heavy drinking was fairly commonplace among the cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point (founded in 1802). In an attempt to stem this in 1826, the academy’s strict superintendent and the “Father of West Point,” General Sylvanus Thayer, began a crackdown by prohibiting alcohol on campus. As Christmas approached and the cadets realized that […]
Read more
The commonly held notion that WW1 was started out of outrage over the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie at the hands of the Serbian nationalist secret society known as the “Black Hand” isn’t entirely correct. In fact, the Emperor Franz Josef himself expressed relief over the assassination because it rid him of an heir […]
Read more
The immutable ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, pi, is, and always has been, 3.1415926 . . . ad infinitum. However, in the winter of 1897, the Indiana State legislature nearly changed this mathematical constant with a civil law. The ridiculous story starts with amateur mathematician Edward Goodwin who, in 1894, believed he had finally solved […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, remains one of the most infamous events in U.S. history. Yet the spy who played a key role in the sneak attack is a forgotten man, unknown even to many World War II buffs. UNDER COVER On March 27, 1941, […]
Read more
In the midst of the Cold War, it can be easy to think the United States and the Soviet Union would be unable to come to an agreement on anything. Yet they, and ten other countries gathered in Washington, D. C. in 1959 to successfully negotiate the Antarctic Treaty, which not only encouraged international cooperation with the goal of scientific […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader The beeeep! beeeep! of someone’s pager going off used to be everywhere… but when was the last time you heard one? Let’s take one last look before they’re gone forever. THE DOCTOR IS OUT In 1924, a New York City businessman named Sherman Amsden started a company called the Doctors’ […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Here’s a story that not many of us learned in school, not even those of us who grew up in Texas: the attempt to create a second Germany in the Republic of Texas. HOI POLLOI In April 1842, a group of German princes and noblemen met in the town of […]
Read more
The humble pineapple is most often seen today either sitting proudly in the centre of an uncomfortably well stocked fruit bowl or being used as the home of a lovable talking sponge. However, between the 16th and 18th centuries, pineapples were so expensive and rare that they were often displayed like fine works of art. Converting exactly how much a […]
Read more
M. Kirkpatrick asks: Why did men used to stick one of their hands in their jackets in old photographs? Conveying calm assurance, the practice of placing one hand inside of a top garment is ancient, dating back to before people even wore jackets, at least as we think of them. In the 6th century B.C., it was considered rude in […]
Read more
How many of you science fiction buffs have fantasized about zipping around town in your very own flying car? Sure, a trip in a helicopter or airplane has now become the standard or even mundane mode of long distance travel, but imagine taking your very own flying machine on a trip across town, presumably with The Jetsons’ theme song blasting […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Start with a New Jersey businessman who has questionable ethics, add soybean oil, and let it stew in a broth of fraud and greed. Pretty soon you’ve got yourself a nice little scandal. YELLOW GOLD In the late 1940s, a combination of several factors led to an enormous increase in […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Aristotle didn’t have it. Neither did Pythagoras or Euclid or other ancient mathematicians. We’re talking about zero, which may sound like nothing, but, as it turns out, is a really big something. Here’s the story. COUNT LIKE A HINDU Sometime in the early 9th century, a Persian mathematician named Muhammad […]
Read more
In 1744 at the age of 18, François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795) enthralled Parisian society after playing two simultaneous games of chess in a public demonstration, all while blindfolded. And even though he lost one game and only drew the other, the display established Philidor as a chess master par excellence, and blew new life into the ancient practice of blindfold […]
Read more
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader If you have kids, there’s a good chance that the very first time you laid eyes on them was via a “sonogram” image taken before they were even born. The grainy images are so common that they’ve become a rite of passage for parents all over the world. Here’s the […]
Read more
With irony equal to that of the unsinkable Titanic drowning on her maiden voyage, the Swedish warship, Mars, called “the Matchless,” was set afire, her armament exploded, and she sank during her first major sea battle. Lost for nearly 450 years, Mars has recently been found in the Baltic Sea, and archaeologists are giddy with the discovery. In the 1560s, […]
Read more
Today, Casual Friday is a day when the conventional dress codes of most offices are cast aside in favour of denim jeans, comfortable t-shirts with movie slogans on them and shirts with the sleeves rolled up. But few people realise that this time-honored tradition of “sticking it to the man” forcing you to wear a noose around your neck four […]
Read more